Beltrami County is more than 99 percent served both at current (25/3) (Mbps down/up) and future (100/20) state speed goals. Paul Bunyan and Arvig are two independent providers that serve portions of the county. Paul Bunyan has been aggressively expanding their GigaZone FTTH service.

The Fertile Beltrami School District recently received $41,922 to allow them to equip buses with wireless hotspots, enabling students to complete homework while commuting.

Beltrami qualifies for $582,788 in CAF 2 funding to upgrade 1,730 locations. Unfortunately CAF 2 recipients are only required to upgrade to 10/1 access. Many may choose to upgrade to better speeds but there are no requirements. However, it seems likely that anyone making upgrades would consider the service available through competitors Paul Bunyan.

Numbers:

The Office of Broadband Development released data on broadband covered in fall of 2016, based on information gathered in July 2016. Here’s how Beltrami ranked:

• Percentage served with 25/3 or better: 99.36
• Percentage served with 100/20 or better: 96.35

Mississippi State University Extension have come up with a ranking system to gauge the digital divide index (DDI) by county. (The lower the number the better – the state average is 40.66.) Here’s how Beltrami ranked:

DDI score of 36.98 out of 100. So Beltrami is in a better position than the Minnesota average.

More info:

• Find more articles on broadband in Beltrami County. (http://tinyurl.com/z5yvec6)
• Districts: CD 7 & 8
  Senate: 2, 5
  House: 02A, 05A

I plan to profile each county in Minnesota – tracking broadband access, digital divide and annotated links to news of what’s happening with broadband in the county. I’m keeping it high level because there are 87 counties!